


Let Go

by glorifiedscapegoat



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banana Fish Reverse Big Bang, Inspired By Artwork By lasenbyphoenix, Inspired by artwork, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-19 07:32:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19352374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorifiedscapegoat/pseuds/glorifiedscapegoat
Summary: In another lifetime, a boy named Lao had dropped his knife and considered a second option.In another lifetime, the boy known as Ash Lynx had watched the promise of his future unfurl before his eyes until it became far too large to ignore.In another lifetime—things were as they should have been.Written For The Banana Fish Reverse Big Bang Event.Inspired by artwork drawn bylasenbyphoenix.





	Let Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lasenby_Heathcote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasenby_Heathcote/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Let Go - An Artwork (Banana Fish)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19471816) by [Lasenby_Heathcote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasenby_Heathcote/pseuds/Lasenby_Heathcote). 



> **Title** : in another lifetime  
>  **Fandom** : Banana Fish  
>  **Author** : glorifiedscapegoat  
>  **Artist** : lasenbyphoenix  
>  **Rating** : T  
>  **Warnings** : No Archive Warnings Apply  
> Here is my first submission for the Banana Fish Reverse Big Bang Event. This story was inspired by artwork drawn by **lasenbyphoenix** on tumblr. Please check it out when you get a chance!

_"Do you trust me?"_

          _"Of course."_

          _"Then let go_."

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

Letting go had never been easy.

          Letting go meant surrendering control.

          Letting go meant placing trust in an uncertainty.

          Ash had practiced letting things go. Ash had grown accustomed to clinging loosely to things. Getting attached meant he had something to lose. Getting attached meant he had a chance to be brought lower. Ash had learned to let go of things from a young age.

          But Eiji...

          Eiji was the one thing Ash could never let go.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

“ _Sa-yo-na-ra_.”

          An ending.

          A farewell.

          _Why did I teach you that word, Ash? I never should have taught you that word._

          The muzzle of the gun that had lifted and aimed at Ash’s back.

          The bullet that would have taken him away forever.

          _This is all my fault, Ash. I'm sorry_.

          A hand flying out and shoving Ash backward. His own hand—thin fingers and bitten cuticles and nails that have never been caked in blood. Strong enough to shove the Lynx right off his feet and out of harm’s way. Strong enough to protect the person who means so much.

          _I’ve lived longer than him. He still has a chance for a future. I’m OK with this_.

          The bullet shredded into his chest.

          Agony blossomed like a rose leaching through his ribs. Weaving around each of his bones and spiking through his nerve endings. Filling his mind with nothing but pain and ice.

          _I’m OK with this_.

          The floor caught him. Hard. Eiji wished it had been a pair of arms instead. He didn’t want to die on the floor. Didn't want to watch his blood pour out onto the concrete and stain the world a horrendous shade of crimson.

          _No. I’m OK with this_.

          It hurt to breathe.

          _I’m OK with this_.

          But Ash was not.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

_Eiji. Eiji!_

          _Who is it? What do you want?_

          _Eiji, open your eyes! Stay with me!_

          _No. I’m OK with this, remember? It’s OK, Ash._

          _Let go of me! He needs me! Eiji!_

          _It’s OK, Ash. You can stop fighting now. You’re safe. It's OK. I’m fine with this._

          _Eiji!_

          _Goodbye, Ash._

          _EIJI!_

          _Goodbye_.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

Everything changed when Eiji Okumura met Ash Lynx.

          Someone so insignificant at first glance had managed to tame the wild beast. Someone so simple had looked at the Lynx and seen him as more than just a monster. A fairy tale premise with promises of a happy ending.

          But not all fairy tales end with smiles.

          Sometimes the beast dies.

          Sometimes the hero loses.

          Of the countless members of Ash’s patched together gang, all of them joined Cain Blood and the rest of his gang in mourning the loss of Eiji Okumura. Not a confirmed loss, of course—but a jarring difference that could not be ignored.

          They prepared for war and mourned in groups of three or four, keeping contact through shouts and paper messages. No one was eager for a second loss.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

          _Ash._

          _Leave me alone._

          _You should go see him._

          _I can’t._

          _If something happens to him and you aren’t there—_

          _Stop! Don’t you think I want to be? Don’t you think I’d be at his side if I could?_

          _Who’s stopping you? You’re Ash Lynx. You do what you please._

          _Not this time. It’s better for Eiji if I’m not there with him._

          _Ash—_

          _All I ever did was hurt him. He’s better off without me. If he lives—if he lives, that’s enough for me._

          _But what if it’s not enough for him?_

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

Shadows reached up and dragged Eiji down. Clawed hands that caught his wrists. His ankles. His throat. Chains made of fire that wrapped around his body and pulled him into the darkness.

          He kicked. He bit. He fought. He struggled because he thought that was what he was supposed to do when the world went dark.

          _You’re OK with this, remember? Didn’t you say you were OK with this?_

          Eiji continued to writhe like a captured worm on a hook.

          _How can you say you’re OK with this?_

          Eiji curled his fingers around the chains and pulled them. The metal broke easily in his fingers. Links fell in a heap around his bruised and battered ankles. Blood dribbled down his stomach from a perfect hole two inches below his heart.

          _Ash_.

          A light.

          A promise.

          " _Do you trust me?_ "

          " _Of course I trust you, Ash_."

          Eiji's fingers flexed and latched onto the chains. He squeezed them in his hands.

          _Ash, I’m not OK with this_.

          The chains fell around his ankles with a clattering sound.

          _I’m **not** OK with this_.

          The shadows began to recede.

          _We’re getting him back!_

          _His pulse is steady!_

          Eiji stood in the darkness and watched it begin to twist and writhe like a snake in the sun. Warmth curled through him and settled in the pit of his stomach. Blood had stopped pouring from the wound. From it, a delicate red flower had bloomed.

          He was not OK with letting it perish.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

_Please, God._

          Please let him live.

          I don’t care if I die.

          You can take me.

          Just please.

          Please.

          Please—

          Don’t take him from me.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

Eiji’s eyelids fluttered open. Above his head, he saw pristine white ceilings. Eggshell. Cracked in the corner. Not good for cooking—Ash might have found that amusing.

          He took a deep breath. It stung. A pinprick compared to the flames that had shredded him to bits some time ago, but still just as painful.

          Ash wasn’t with him.

          That was worse.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

_Sayonara is a horrible word, Ash. I wish I’d never taught it to you. I cursed us. I ruined whatever chance we had of making things better. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._

          _I want to take it back, Ash._

          _I want to take back that horrible word._

          _Come back so I can teach you another one._

          _Please, Ash._

          _Please come back_.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

But Ash wasn’t there to apologize to.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

_Eiji’s going to live, Ash._

__

__

          Good.

          Is that all you have to say? Good?

          For now.

          I never understood you. Probably never will. Make sure you don’t die, all right?

          If I do, it’s been fun.

          _You’re twisted, kid. Seriously twisted_.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

In another lifetime, things might have played out differently.

          Ash might have finished his business with Golzine. Violence might have rocked the streets of New York and left a bad taste in the mouths of those who witnessed it. Eiji Okumura might have survived his injuries long enough to venture home with a faint hope that Ash Lynx might someday find him and begin life anew. Ash Lynx might have taken a blade to the stomach and bled out on the table of an old library, tears in his eyes as the promise of a future slipped away.

          But these are but possibilities of another time. Chances and slips of shadow that flicker by, but may not enter reality.

          In another lifetime, Dino Golzine suffered for his crimes at the hands of the boy whose life he had sought to corrupt.

          In another lifetime, a boy named Lao had dropped his knife and considered a second option.

          In another lifetime, the boy known as Ash Lynx had watched the promise of his future unfurl before his eyes until it became far too large to ignore.

          In another lifetime—things were as they should have been.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

_So you’re alive._

          _So are you._

          _Don’t sound too miserable about it._

          _I’m not. I’m happy to see you._

          _Sure, sure. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?_

          _Hm?_

          _There’s somewhere else you’re supposed to be. Go on. He’s waiting_.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

Eiji Okumura stood near the window overlooking the main entrance, showered and completely exhausted from the effort. He wished he could just walk out of the hospital and go home already—it felt like an eternity since he’d seen the little apartment he'd begun to think of as home.

          The hospital room's phone rang suddenly, startling him from his wayward thoughts. Eiji shuffled over to it and answered without checking the caller ID, voice still husky, but no longer sore. “He—Hello?”

          “ _Hey_.”

          His chest tightened. The bullet wound in his side throbbed at the sensation. For a moment, he considered hanging up. It couldn’t be real. _You can’t avoid him forever_ , a small voice in the back of his head chided. It sounded a bit like Ash, which meant there was no chance of avoiding him.

          Instead, he swallowed down the tears building in his mouth and replied, “Hi, Ash...how are you?”

          It was quiet on the other end of the line, and Eiji wondered for a moment if Ash had been the one to hang up. Then, a moment later, Eiji heard him murmur, “ _I’m fine, Eiji. I’m just...you know, wondering if you’re OK_.”

          Eiji sat down on the edge of the windowsill and peered outside. It was raining. “I’m doing better,” Eiji said calmly. In reality he was quite the opposite. Part of him still wanted to kick and scream and tear his hair out, but at the same time he felt eerily calm. Detached in a way that should have been alarming, but wasn't. He looked down at his fingers and flexed them just to make sure they were real. “The doctors say I should be able to go home tomorrow.”

          “ _Good. That’s...that’s good_.”

          "Ibe-san said he'd...come and get me." Eiji's throat ached. He reached up and rubbed his Adam's apple. Prickles of pain shot through his neck, down his collar and into the top of his heart. "The doctors don't think I should travel for a while." He felt his lips lifting at the corners, just a bit. "So, I'm still here. In New York. For now."

          There was abrupt silence, on the other end of the line.

          Eiji's stomach tightened. "Ash?"

          " _I'm still here, Eiji_."

          "Oh." Eiji shifted and fiddled with a loose piece of thread on the thin hospital blanket. It hadn't kept him warm the way he'd hoped it would. _I miss you, Ash_ , he wanted to tell him. _I miss you so much, it's breaking my heart_. He cleared his throat and said, "What, um, what do you think of it?"

          " _It's...it's good, Eiji_."

          “Are you sure you’re alright?”

          “ _Should you really be asking **me** that question?_”

          Eiji’s stomach dropped to the floor. With everything that had happened—the gang wars, the sudden announcement of Golzine's death, the gunshots and bullet wounds that had almost taken everything—it was a wonder Eiji had any strength to keep thinking. _No_ , he thought, he really shouldn’t have been asking Ash if he was all right. If anything, Eiji should have been worrying about himself. He should have been worrying about what he would tell his parents. How he would calm Ibe-san when he saw him again.

          And yet he found it difficult to think about himself for very long. Ash occupied most of his thoughts these days, even when he'd been lying prone in a hospital bed, reliving the terror of near-death over and over again. Ash had been there when Eiji was fighting with the shadows and losing. Ash had been there when the doctor pulled him back from the brink. Even if Eiji couldn’t see him, Ash had always been with him.

          Except now he wasn’t—and Eiji couldn’t stand it anymore.

          “Where are you?” Eiji whispered.

          “ _Why?_ ” Ash sounded on edge, like an animal backed into a corner.

          "I—" Eiji swallowed the lump in his throat. "I—want to see you, Ash."

          Ash was quiet on the other end of the phone.

          Eiji’s breath went still. He could just barely remember how it felt when the bullet shredded through his chest. Burning, he thought, followed immediately by a thorned rose spreading its nasty thorns through his rib cage. Ash’s silence on the phone felt much worse. Eiji strained to listen to anything he could hear. A breath, a whisper—something.

          “ _I’m…_ ” Ash’s voice went soft. “ _I’m in the lobby, actually_.”

          “You’re—” Eiji shot a glance to his bedroom door. Nurses in pale blue uniforms wandered through the pristine white and green hallways. “You’re here?”

          “ _Yeah_.”

          Eiji’s fingers inched unconsciously toward his scalp. He tugged on a strand of hair. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a shower. “Tell them,” he said, and then he paused. What would Ash tell the doctors? He and Eiji looked nothing alike. He couldn’t pass for a relative. Couldn’t pass for any part of Eiji’s life—despite the ironic fact that Ash occupied so much of Eiji’s life now. “Oh. I know. Tell them you’re my roommate from the university. Pick any one you want. I’ll go along with it”

          “ _OK_.”

          “You’re wearing a disguise, aren’t you?”

          “ _No_.”

          Eiji paused. “You’re—you’re not?”

          “ _New York is huge, Eiji. There must be hundreds of people who look like me_.”

          Eiji pressed his lips into a thin line. No one could ever look like Ash. No one could ever match those eyes. Those that had seen such horrors and yet still saw wonder in everything the world had to offer. No one could be so beautiful and wonderful and enchanting all at once. No one in the world could be Ash Lynx. It was impossible.

          “ _Give me a few minutes. I’ll check in at the desk and be right up. See you in a bit_.”

          Ash sounded fragile, in that moment. Weak with happiness and relief. It suddenly made Eiji aware of the sweat plastered to his spine. The scents of chemicals and illness floating around his room. The paper thin gown with only a pair of boxer shorts beneath.

          “Ash, wait.” Eiji’s face burned with a light flutter of embarrassment. “There’s, um, something you should know before you come up here.”

          He heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

          “No, it’s nothing serious. It’s just—well, um, I kind of look...bad?” Eiji wrinkled his nose and tried to picture the face he’d seen in the mirror when he’d gone to relieve himself that morning. Gaunt cheeks, limp black hair, eyes that were just a bit too dead. A hollow imitation of the person Eiji Okumura knew he should be. “I haven’t had a proper shower in a few days. I don’t smell bad or anything, but I look a bit different. Just—I just don’t want you to be surprised.”

          Ash didn’t speak for a few moments.

          Eiji’s heart filled with nervous butterflies.

          “ _Eiji_ ,” Ash said slowly. “ _I’ll be up in a minute_.”

          The phone clicked off. Eiji set it back on the receiver with a gentle click. He folded his hands on his lap. Raindrops tapped on the glass. The sky was a beautiful shade of gray, Eiji wondered if there would be a rainbow when the sun finally returned its golden light.

          Ash was here.

          Ash was coming up to see him.

          His chest fluttered with excitement. He wondered if he had enough time to dash into the bathroom and wash his face a bit before Ash arrived. _No, that’s stupid. Ash won’t care about that_. Eiji smoothed his hands through his hair all the same and looked patiently at the door.

          Seconds ticked by.

          Eiji wondered what he would say.

          _Ash, I wonder what **you’ll** say_.

          Eiji didn’t care what Ash said. Just so long as Ash _said_ something.

          A nurse walked by the open door to Eiji’s hospital room and pointed at it. Her lips formed words, _his room’s right here, sir_ , but Eiji couldn’t hear her voice over the excitement and anxiety swirling like a flurry of butterflies around in his mind.

          Footsteps echoed down the hall.

          Eiji recognized those footsteps.

          Eiji would recognize those footsteps anywhere.

          His fingers trembled. His palms went cold.

          _Ash_.

          And like a prayer, he arrived.

          Ash walked in and came to a halt in the middle of the room. He looked the same as he always had—beautiful blond hair falling to his chin, dark green eyes rimmed in black sleepless circles, bones in his cheeks sticking out more than usual. Even exhausted, Ash Lynx possessed a savage beauty that no one in the world could ever replicate. He’d dragged a thick brown jacket around his shoulders, obscuring Eiji’s view of the tee shirt and ripped jeans he’d thrown together.

          _Ash_ , Eiji thought, relief echoing through his body. The aches and pains vanished. He felt weightless and wonderful—and soothing reprieve from the tension and stress that had weighed him down for countless weeks.

          Ash looked Eiji up and down before locking eyes with him. Eiji froze. The moment swirled around them in an endless loop. A quick snap of wind that simultaneously chilled and warmed him.

          And then, after a moment of eternal silence, Ash whispered, “You lied to me. You don’t look bad at all.”

          Eiji's throat tightened.

          Ash took a single step forward—and Eiji threw himself at him, arms winding around Ash's neck, head burying just beneath his chin.

          Eiji felt Ash's arms clamp around him like a vice, encasing him in warmth too intense to be human. It felt like coming home at last. Eiji held Ash tight, remembering that even through everything they'd been through together, Ash had always come back to him. Memories circulated through his skull. Losses both of them had suffered because of each other and for each other. Blood and gunshots and tears splattered against the seam of his lips as Ash had pleaded for Eiji to stay with him.

          “Thank you for coming back to me,” Eiji said into Ash's shirt. “That was scary.”

          “Don't do that again, Eiji.” He felt Ash's voice rumbling through his chest. The words broke off the end of his tongue like shards of stained glass. “Please?”

          “I won't,” Eiji whispered, and then the tears came. “I missed you.”

          Ash ran his hand through Eiji's hair and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.” He held Eiji, as the tears blurred his sight. Ash pressed his lips to Eiji's scalp. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I thought you'd be safer if I just...stayed away.”

          Everything inside Eiji's body burned. He tucked his head beneath Ash's chin and let out a trembling sob. "Stay with me," he murmured. "Please, Ash. I don't care what happens. I don’t care what you’ve done or what comes next. Just—just stay with me. Please stay."

          "Yes," Ash replied. "Yes, Eiji.”

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

_Sa-yo-na-ra._

          _I never should have taught you that word._

          _Then teach me new ones._

          _Of course I’ll teach you, Ash._

          _Teach me something, then._

          _We don’t need to rush. We have all the time in the world._

          _You’re right, Eiji. You’re right_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
